HIS WORD REVEALED: A Deep Dive into the Word of God

The Lord's Prayer & Answering God's Call: Predestination, Free Will & Eternal Life

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What does it mean to be called by God, and who receives eternal life? In this episode of His Word Revealed, we explore the Lord's Prayer and the biblical concept of divine calling — unpacking predestination, free will, and salvation through Christian scripture. We examine how Jesus Christ holds authority over all humanity yet grants eternal life to those drawn by God the Father, and why your response to that invitation matters. Learn how God uses both your strengths and your weaknesses to advance the Kingdom of Heaven, and how believers are empowered by the Holy Spirit to carry out His mission on earth. This is a study of the Christian life as a high-stakes partnership with the divine — one aimed at manifesting God's will here and now.

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Produced using AI-generated narration. All Scripture study and theological content is human-authored.

M

You know, usually when we think about uh history's most famous quotes, there is this collective assumption that we absolutely have the facts straight.

V

Oh, totally.

M

Like it's almost a cultural bedrock, right? You imagine Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca leaning against the piano in that smoky bar, looking deep into Ingrid Bergman's eyes and saying, Play it again, Sam.

V

Right, right.

M

It is iconic. I mean, it is etched into our cultural memory. And yet if you actually go back and watch the movie.

V

Oh, he never says it.

M

He never says that line. Not once.

V

It's true. I mean, he says play it, and uh earlier she says play it, Sam. But our collective memory just kind of mashed it all together into something that sounded better to us, I guess. And it becomes this cultural shorthand. We accept the label without ever really going back to check the original transcript.

M

Exactly. Or, you know, think about Darth Vader.

V

Oh, the Star Wars one.

M

Right. People walk around quoting Luke, I am your father.

V

Yeah.

M

But he actually says, No, I am your father.

V

Which is such a subtle difference.

M

But it changes the tone, yeah. It is just fascinating how comfortable we get with those uh collective misremembrances. We just all agree to call something by a name it never actually had.

V

Right.

M

But when you step out of the realm of like movie trivia and into the world of biblical theology, realizing that we've mislabeled something isn't just a fun dinner party fact.

V

No, not at all.

M

It can actually fundamentally shift our entire understanding of a text. And uh we are looking at a theological landscape today that is going to shift beneath our feet all because of a title we've applied to a very specific, incredibly famous prayer.

V

It really is uh the definition of a paradigm shift. Because when you change the label on a piece of scripture, you kind of change the lens through which you view the entire passage. Yeah. You change the context. And context, especially in the biblical narrative, is absolutely everything.

M

It really is. So welcome to today's deep dive. We are so genuinely glad you were here with us. Today we're unpacking a fascinating paper called His Word Revealed, and the author argues something that totally stopped me in my tracks.

V

It's a huge claim.

M

It is. It's regarding what practically every Christian around the world calls the Lord's Prayer.

V

Right.

M

You know, the one, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. It's found in Luke chapter 11, verses 1 to 4, and uh Matthew chapter 6. We recite it in church, we teach it to our kids.

V

Everyone knows it.

M

Right. But the argument here is that this is not actually the Lord's Prayer, it is the disciples' prayer.

V

which makes perfect sense when you look at the historical context of that moment. I mean, the disciples literally came to Jesus and said, Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.

M

Right. They asked for a guide.

V

Exactly. In the first century Jewish context, rabbis often gave their followers specific prayers as a sort of um identifying marker of their theology. So Jesus was giving them a model, like a template.

M

A structural outline.

V

Yeah. He was saying, When you pray, pray like this. It was a structural outline for their communication with the Father, not necessarily Jesus pouring out his own personal, intimate petitions. Right.

M

So if that is the disciples' prayer, the natural question is where is the actual Lord's prayer?

V

Yeah, where is the real one?

M

Where is the moment where Jesus himself is praying directly to the Father, expressing his own deepest desires, and laying out the ultimate cosmic blueprint right before the end of his earthly ministry.

V

Well, the author points out that this true Lord's Prayer is found in John chapter 17.

M

Okay, let's unpack this because discovering this completely reframes our understanding of how Jesus communicated with the Father.

V

It really does. I mean, John chapter 17 is often called the high priestly prayer by theologians, but calling it the true Lord's Prayer captures the intimacy of it beautifully, I think.

M

Yeah, that makes sense.

V

This isn't just Jesus teaching a congregation on a hillside. This is a private, intensely profound communication within the Trinity itself that was just kind of overheard by the disciples. Wow. And it establishes the transfer of authority and it sets the specific parameters for what eternal life actually is. It's the bedrock for understanding everything we are going to talk about today.

M

Everything.

V

Yeah, like what it means to be called by God, how we get eternal life, and what our mission actually is.

M

So let's dive right into that bedrock. Let's look at this true Lord's Prayer and see how it completely redefines authority in eternal life.

V

Yeah.

M

We're looking at John chapter 17, verses 1 to 5. Jesus lifts his eyes to heaven and says, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son, that your son also may glorify you.

V

I I want to pause on that phrase, the hour has come.

M

Sure.

V

Because throughout the Gospel of John, there's this recurring motif of time. Jesus keeps saying things like, My hour has not yet come. He avoids arrest because uh his hour had not yet come.

M

Right. He's always delaying.

V

But now the clock has struck. Right. The hour meaning the cross, the resurrection, the ascension, the culmination of his entire earthly incarnate mission is finally at hand. There is a massive weight to this moment.

M

I can only imagine the tension in the room. And then crucially, in verse two, he makes this scaggering statement to the Father. He acknowledges that he has been given, and I'm quoting the Greek translation here, authority over all flesh.

V

We really need to wrestle with that word authority. Yeah. In the context of all flesh, which is the biblical shorthand for all of frail, morble humanity, this is a declaration of absolute total sovereignty. Wow. Jesus is recognizing that the Father has handed him ultimate jurisdiction over every single human life on this planet, past, present, and future.

M

You know, I hear a phrase like authority over all flesh, and my modern democratic brain immediately thinks of a tyrant.

V

Right. It sounds intimidating.

M

It sounds like a dictatorship, a cosmic authoritarian who just demands subjugation.

V

Yeah.

M

So how do we reconcile authority over all flesh with a God who is fundamentally defined as love?

V

That is the perfect question because the text actually answers it in the very next breath. It tells us exactly how Jesus exercises this absolute authority. Okay. And it is utterly counterintuitive to how human beings use power. I mean, a human dictator uses authority to take life, right? Yeah. To extract taxes, to force labor. But the verse says he has this authority that he should give etern eternal life. His authority is exercised exclusively through the giving of life.

M

Oh wow.

V

The ultimate power is used for ultimate grace.

M

That is beautiful. But then we hit verse three, and this is the part that I think is going to challenge a lot of assumptions for you listening today.

V

Definitely.

M

Because the text gives us a literal, explicit definition of eternal life. Jesus says, and this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

V

This is one of the most profound paradigm shifts in the entire New Testament. When we hear the phrase eternal life, our human brains almost always default to the concept of chronological immortality.

M

Exactly. Endless time. We think of it as living forever, an infinite timeline stretching out into the future where we just don't die. It reminds me of the old Greek myth of Tythonis.

V

Oh, right. The mortal who was loved by the dawn goddess.

M

Yes. Eos. She begs Zeus to grant Tythonis eternal life, which Zeus did, but she forgot to ask for eternal youth.

V

Ah, right.

M

So Tithonis just kept getting older and older and more frail, eventually turning into a cicada, just babbling endlessly forever is eternal life. But it was a curse because it was just a quantity of time without the quality of life.

V

That is a brilliant analogy. Tithonis got the chronology without the vitality. And what Jesus is doing here in John chapter 17 is defining eternal life not as a quantity of time, but as a quality of existence.

M

A quality of existence.

V

Yes. He says eternal life is a profound, intimate relationship. It is the active state of knowing God the Father and Jesus Christ. And the Greek word used here for know is uh ginosko. Ginosco.

M

Okay.

V

Right. It doesn't mean knowing facts about someone, like knowing the capital of a country or knowing who the 16th president was.

M

Right. It's not trivia.

V

Exactly. It means an experiential, intimate, relational knowing. It's the kind of knowing that comes from shared experience and deep love.

M

So if I'm understanding this correctly, what does this mean for you listening right now, maybe on a Tuesday morning while you're driving to work?

V

A question.

M

If eternal life is fundamentally relational, rather than just an endless timeline on a celestial calendar, doesn't that change everything about how we view salvation?

V

It really does.

M

Because we usually think of salvation as a ticket to heaven, right? Yeah. A destination you arrive at after you die. But if eternal life is knowing God, does that mean eternal life is something that begins right now?

V

What's fascinating here is that that is precisely the implication, and it is a massive theological breakthrough for many believers. If eternal life is knowing God, then eternal life commences in the present. It's an active, ongoing engagement with the divine that starts the moment you are brought into that relationship.

M

You don't have to wait to die.

V

Exactly. You don't have to die to start experiencing eternal life. You step into it now, and physical death is just a doorway where that relationship continues unhindered by a fallen world. Wow. And because eternal life is relational, Jesus' authority over all flesh is fundamentally about his power to initiate, mediate, and grant that relationship. He has finished the work on earth and now he administers this life.

M

It makes salvation an active romance rather than a passive waiting room.

V

Perfectly said.

M

But looking at the paper, the author points out that Jesus doesn't just unilaterally blast this relational life out to every single person on earth in a blanket distribution. Right. There is a specific clause in his prayer that we really need to investigate. And it's a clause that might make some of us a little uncomfortable because it challenges our modern notions of fairness.

V

It is definitely a challenging concept, but we have to read what is right there in the text. In verse two, Jesus says, He has been given authority over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him.

M

To as many as you have given him. That is the clause. The argument being made is that even though Jesus has authority over all flesh, he only gives this eternal life, this intimate relationship, to those whom God the Father gives to him. In other words, to those whom God calls.

V

Right. And to reinforce this, the paper brings in another teaching from Jesus found earlier in the Gospel of John in chapter six, verse 44.

M

What does that one say?

V

Jesus explicitly states, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.

M

Draws him. Let's look at that word. The Greek there is hellkuo, right? Yes. The very physical magnetic word. I've read that it's the same word used for dragging a heavy net full of fish onto the shore or drawing water from a deep well.

V

That's right.

M

It implies that on our own, we are either static, completely dead weight, or actively moving in the opposite direction.

V

We need outside force.

M

Exactly. The initiative, the drawing power, comes entirely from the Father. We don't just wake up one day and decide to find God. God hauls us in.

V

Exactly. The theological premise here is that God is the initiator of salvation. He has a purpose and he sees potential in us.

M

Okay.

V

He draws us or calls us according to that purpose. And to map out the mechanics of this calling, the text brings in a powerhouse passage from the Apostle Paul. Romans chapter 8, verses 28 to 30.

M

Oh, yes.

V

This is often referred to by theologians as the golden chain of salvation.

M

Oh, yes. Romans chapter 8, verse 28. The famous all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose.

V

You see that verse stitched onto pillows.

M

Printed on coffee mugs everywhere. Exactly. But it's the sequence that follows in verses 29 and 30 that is so critical to understanding this calling, and it's heavily theological.

V

It is.

M

All details a very specific, unbroken chain of divine action.

V

Let's walk through it because the terms are dense.

M

Please.

V

Paul writes, For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. Moreover, whom he predestined, these he also called, whom he called, these he also justified, and whom he justified, these he also glorified.

M

Okay, let's stop and play. Explain it like I'm five of these words. Because if we don't define them, they just sound like seminary jargon. Let's start with foreknowledge. Does this just mean like God has a crystal ball and saw down the corridors of time to see who would choose him?

V

Not exactly. I mean, in biblical terms, foreknowledge isn't just about precognition of facts.

unknown

Okay.

V

Remember how we talked about the word know being intimate and relational?

M

Yeah, GINESCO.

V

Right. When God foreknows someone, it implies a prior, intimate relationship of affection.

M

Oh, interesting.

V

In Amos chapter three, verse two, God says to Israel, You only have I known of all the families of the earth. He obviously knew about the other nations, right? Yeah. But he intimately chose and knew Israel. So foreknowledge is God setting his affection on certain people beforehand.

M

Okay, that makes sense. Then comes predestination. He also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. Predestination is a scary word for a lot of people. It sounds like fatalism.

V

It does, but notice what the destination actually is.

M

Right.

V

He didn't just predestine people to a location called heaven, he predestined them to be conformed to the image of his son. Wow. The destiny is a character transformation. God predetermined that the people he set his affection on would ultimately end up looking, acting, and loving like Jesus.

M

That's beautiful. It's not just a sorting hat, it's a transformation process.

V

Exactly.

M

Then comes the calling.

V

Yeah.

M

The invitation. The drawing we just talked about.

V

Right.

M

And then justification. Whom he called, these caused. He also justified. Wait, let's pause on justification. Because outside of theology, if I say I'm justifying something, it usually means I'm making an excuse for bad behavior. Sure. Like I'm justifying eating a third slice of cake because I took the stairs today.

V

We've all been there.

M

Right. Is that what Paul means here? Is God just making excuses for our sin?

V

Not at all. Paul is using a legal courtroom term here.

M

A courtroom term.

V

Yeah. Imagine you are standing before a judge guilty of a multitude of crimes. Justification is the judge not only declaring you not guilty and wiping your record clean, but actually treating you as if you had lived a perfect, law-abiding life.

M

Wait, really? Not just pardoned, but perfect.

V

Exactly. In Christian theology, Christ's perfect righteousness is credited or imputed to your account. God doesn't make excuses for your sin. He legally declares you righteous because the penalty for that sin was paid on the cross. Wow. It is a profound change in your legal standing before the creator of the universe.

M

Okay. That is immensely powerful. So he foreknows, predestines, calls, justifies, and finally glorifies.

V

Yes.

M

And Paul writes glorified in the past tense, even though it's a future event. Because in the mind of God, it's already a done deal.

V

Exactly. Glorification is the final state, being fully freed from the presence of sin, given a resurrected body, completely restored.

M

So that is the unbroken chain from eternity past to eternity future.

V

Yes. It is a sequence that moves from the mind of God in eternity past right into our present reality through calling and justification, and then out into our eternal future in glorification.

M

That's a lot to wrap your head around.

V

It is.

M

But I want to introduce a very specific analogy used by the author of the paper we are reviewing today, because I think it brings this lofty theology down to the street level.

V

Let's hear it.

M

The author writes Just as a company will seek to hire the best suited candidates for the job that will make the company profitable, so does the kingdom of heaven look for potential citizens to bring glory to the king and advance the kingdom's agenda here on earth.

V

It is a very pragmatic modern analogy to help us grasp the concept of being selected for a purpose.

M

Okay, but here's where it gets really interesting. I'm going to push back on this analogy a little bit.

V

Go for it.

M

If God is essentially acting like a celestial corporate recruiter, that raises a red flag for me.

V

Why is that?

M

Well, when corporate recruiters look at my resume, they are looking at my past performance. They want the highest GPA, the most experience, the person who has a track record of never making a mistake and bringing in the most revenue.

V

Right.

M

If God only picks the best suited candidates based on performance, where does grace fit in? Are we earning this calling? Because that sounds like workspace salvation, which goes against the entire New Testament.

V

That is a phenomenal distinction to make, and it's the exact tension we need to navigate carefully. Yeah. The author's analogy is helpful for understanding purpose, but we cannot stretch it so far that it breaks the theology of grace. The text says God calls according to his purpose and sees our potential.

M

Potential, not past performance.

V

Exactly. It absolutely does not say he calls based on our past performance or our moral resume.

M

So God isn't looking at my spiritual LinkedIn profile.

V

Not in the traditional sense of looking for perfection, no. The best suited candidate for God's kingdom isn't the Pharisee with the flawless track record of rule keeping.

M

Right. Jesus didn't get along with them.

V

He constantly clashed with the religious elite who thought their resumes earned them a spot. God, in his infinite foreknowledge, knows exactly whose raw underlying potential can be molded and utilized to advance the kingdom's agenda.

M

So it's about what we can become.

V

It is about God's purpose, not our perfection. He foreknows who will respond to the drawing, who can be broken down and rebuilt, who can be conformed to the image of his son.

M

That distinction between purpose and past performance is massive.

V

It really is.

M

It changes the corporate recruiter analogy from hiring the person who already knows how to do everything perfectly to um recruiting a completely unqualified person because the CEO sees an inherent capacity in them, a capacity that can be trained and transformed to fit the exact future needs of the company.

V

Exactly. And furthermore, the paper is very careful to maintain human agency in this process.

M

Okay, good.

V

While God is the initiator, it explicitly states that once God calls us according to his purpose, then it is up to us to exercise our free will to accept and keep his word.

M

So the calling is the divine invitation. The drawing is the Father pulling us toward the opportunity, creating the conditions for us to see the truth.

V

Right.

M

But we still have to walk through the door. We have to exercise free will.

V

Yes. The sovereignty of God's predestination and the reality of human free will are two tracks that run parallel in scripture.

M

Carl tracks, yeah.

V

They are held together in tension within this theology. God sets the table, he sends out the invitations based on his perfect foreknowledge of our potential, but he does not force us to eat. We have to accept the grace.

M

Okay, but if God recruits based on potential and purpose, and if he holds this incredible foreknowledge of how everything will play out, I see where you're going with this. There is one hire that Jesus made that seems, on the surface, to make absolutely no sense at all. It looks like a catastrophic recruitment failure by the celestial CEO, and it leads us directly into a profound case study on character, purpose, and free will. The Enigma of Judas Iscariot.

V

This is perhaps the most challenging and thought-provoking part of the entire discussion. We have to go back to Jesus' prayer in John chapter 17.

M

Right. Jesus is praying to the Father, looking back over his ministry, and in verse 12, he says, While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. Those whom you gave me I have kept, and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled.

V

Let's define that term for clarity. The son of perdition.

M

Yeah, what does that mean?

V

Perdition means utter destruction, ruin, or eternal damnation. By calling Judas the son of perdition, Jesus is identifying his ultimate tragic destiny. Wow. And the paper we are studying makes a remarkably bold claim about this.

M

It does.

V

It states, I'd say Judas was chosen because of his weakness towards money.

M

That is a staggering thought. Chosen because of his fatal flaw. Not in spite of it, but because of it. Right. To back this up, the text points us to John chapter 12, verses 4 to 6. And I want to spend a minute painting the picture of this scene because the context is wild.

V

Go ahead.

M

Jesus is at a dinner in Bethany. Mary, the sister of Lazarus, takes an alabaster flask of extremely fragrant, incredibly expensive oil spikenard, imported all the way from the Himalayas, and she breaks it, pouring it over Jesus's feet, wiping them with her hair.

V

It's a very dramatic moment.

M

Yes. The whole house fills with the fragrance, and Judas gets instantly indignant.

V

He ruins a deeply beautiful, prophetic moment of worship by focusing on the finances. He says, why was this fragrant oil not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor?

M

Now, on the surface, to the casual observer in the room, that sounds like a noble, charitable concern.

V

It does.

M

Judas sounds like the pragmatic treasurer who cares about the marginalized. But we need to understand the socioeconomic reality of first century Judea here. A single denarius was the standard wage for one full day of grueling, backbreaking manual labor. So 300 denarii is almost an entire year's salary for a working class family.

V

That's massive.

M

Imagine someone taking 50,000 or 60,000. Thousand dollars in cash, dumping it on the floor and lighting it on fire. That is the level of extravagance we were talking about. It's a huge amount of wealth.

V

Exactly. The temptation of that amount of money would be intoxicating.

M

Right.

V

But the text in John, written years later with the benefit of hindsight, pulls back the curtain on Judas's actual motivation in that moment.

M

What does it say?

V

Verse six says, This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief and had the money box and he used to take what was put in it.

M

Oh wow. He was literally embezzling from the disciples' treasury. He was a thief.

V

Yes.

M

And yet, knowing this, he was chosen. He was called by Jesus to be one of the inner circle of twelve.

V

Which brings us back to the premise God calls according to his purpose based on foreknowledge.

M

Okay, but hang on. I have to push back hard on this on behalf of anyone listening right now who is wrestling with this. Okay. If Jesus specifically recruited a guy who he knew was deeply flawed, who he knew was going to embezzle money, and who he knew would eventually betray him to get him killed?

V

Yes.

M

Isn't that essentially entrapment? Was Judas just a pawn on a cosmic chessboard?

V

It's a fair question.

M

Was he set up to fail? How could Judas possibly overcome his flaw if his failure was a required predestined part of the cosmic plan to get Jesus to the cross? How do we reconcile this with free will?

V

That is the deepest philosophical tension in theology. It's called compatibilism.

M

Compatibilism.

V

Yes. It's the idea that God's absolute sovereignty and human free will are both entirely true at the same time. Okay. And if we connect this to the bigger picture, the paper points out a fascinating dynamic that resolves the entrapment argument. The text explicitly states that Judas was never treated any different from the other eleven.

M

Let's dig into that. What does that mean practically?

V

It means everything. Think about Judas's lived experience for those three years. Jesus didn't isolate him, Jesus didn't force him to steal. Right. Judas walked with the Son of God every single day. He heard every sermon on the mound. He witnessed every miracle, every healing.

M

He was right there.

V

When Jesus sent the disciples out two by two to heal the sick and cast out demons, Judas was given the same power and went out and did the same work.

M

Wow, I never would have thought about that.

V

He had his feet washed by Jesus at the Last Supper. He lived in the exact same environment of grace, truth, and love as Peter, James, and John. He had every opportunity to repent, to change, to let that relational, eternal life transform his heart.

M

So God didn't create Judas's greed. God didn't twist his arm and force him to skim off the top of the money box. Judas's character was his own. His choices were his own.

V

Precisely. The Lord knew his character, that is the foreknowledge we talked about. God knew that a man with this specific, deep-seated, unrepentant weakness toward money and political power would ultimately, of his own free will, choose to betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver when he realized Jesus wasn't going to be the military conqueror he wanted.

M

Because he wanted a different kind of king.

V

Exactly. God didn't make him do it. God simply utilized the choices Judas was freely going to make to ensure that the overarching purpose, the crucifixion, the atonement, and the subsequent salvation of humanity was perfectly fulfilled.

M

The Lord knew his character and used him for his purpose. Yes. It is a sobering, almost terrifying thought. It means our free will is entirely intact, we are completely responsible for our actions, but God is so sovereign, so infinitely complex in his orchestration of reality that he can weave even our darkest, most rebellious, sinful choices into his ultimate plan for good.

V

And this is where the paper turns the mirror directly onto the reader. It moves from high-level theological analysis to intense personal application.

M

It does. It asks a profound question that I want to pose directly to you, our listener, right now. The author writes, Perhaps we should all examine ourselves. What is my character and my potential? Can the supreme God the Father call sinful me for good purpose, and then Jesus rewards me with eternal life?

V

It completely levels the playing field.

M

It really does.

V

When you look at the disciples, none of them were called because they had perfect resumes. Peter was wildly impulsive, prone to violence, and eventually denied even knowing Jesus. Right. Thomas was crippled by skepticism and doubt. James and John had anger issues. They wanted to call down fire from heaven to burn up a village.

M

I always forget about that.

V

Yeah. And Judas had his greed. We all have our fatal flaws. The question isn't whether you are sinful or broken. The question is whether you will exercise your free will to accept the call, to allow God to use your specific character and potential for his good purpose rather than letting your flaws isolate you and lead you to ruin.

M

It really reframes how we look at our own weaknesses. Our weaknesses don't disqualify us from the calling. They might be the very terrain where God intends to do his most purposeful work. Exactly. Which is an incredible transition. Once we realize that God calls flawed, messy people, like the disciples, and like you and me, for a specific purpose, we naturally have to ask, what exactly is that purpose? Right. What is the actual job description we are being recruited for by this kingdom?

V

That brings us to the core of the believer's mission, the kingdom agenda, and the great commission.

M

To understand the agenda, the paper takes us straight back to the model prayer, the disciples' prayer we talked about at the very beginning, the prayer Jesus taught the disciples in Matthew chapter 6, verses 9 to 10.

V

In this manner, therefore, pray.

M

Your kingdom come, your will be done. The author states very simply God wants us to make his agenda ours. That is the job description. The calling isn't just an invitation to go to heaven when you die, it's an invitation to align your life entirely with the priorities of the kingdom of heaven right now on earth.

V

It is about active participation.

M

Yeah.

V

But what does making his agenda, our agenda, actually look like in practice?

M

Yeah. How do we do that?

V

How do we, as flawed individuals, execute thy kingdom come in our neighborhoods, our workplaces, our families?

M

For the practical application, the text points us to Matthew chapter 28, verses 16 to 20. This is widely known as the Great Commission.

V

The final marching orders.

M

Exactly. Jesus, having conquered death, meets the eleven remaining disciples on a mountain in Galilee. He steps up to them and declares, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

V

There's that word again, authority. Yes. In John 17, before the cross, he acknowledged it in prayer. Now, post-resurrection, he is fully operating within it, declaring it openly to his followers.

M

And based on that absolute, unquestionable authority, he gives the command in verse 19. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you.

V

It is a breathtakingly massive agenda. Make disciples of all the nations. This isn't a localized, regional religious movement anymore. This is a global, borderless kingdom expansion. It is the ultimate mandate for the church.

M

But I want to stop and highlight a very subtle, surprisingly human detail that the author includes from Matthew chapter 28, verse 17.

V

Well, this is a great etch.

M

It's a detail that often gets skipped over when people preach on the Great Commission. It says, when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted.

V

It is without a doubt one of the most comforting phrases in the entire New Testament.

M

Isn't it? Think about the psychological reality of this moment. These are the eleven remaining disciples. They have walked with him for three years. They saw him feed the five thousand, they saw him walk on water, they saw him die a gruesome death, and now they are staring directly at the physically resurrected Jesus on a mountain.

V

Yeah.

M

And yet right there in the text it says some doubted.

V

It's incredible.

M

The Greek word there is dystazo, which means to stand in two minds, to hesitate, to waver. Even while they were actively bowing down and worshiping, there was internal hesitation, confusion, perhaps a feeling of being utterly overwhelmed by the cosmic reality of what was happening.

V

And what's remarkable is what Jesus doesn't do in response to their hesitation.

M

Right.

V

He doesn't rebuke them for their doubt. He doesn't look at them and say, Are you kidding me? I just walked out of a tomb and you're still doubting. Okay, the ones who are wavering step to the back. I only want the ones with perfect, unwavering faith for this mission.

M

Exactly. He entrusts the ultimate global kingdom agenda to a group of working class. Maybe you feel like you can't be used by God because you have questions or because your faith feels fragile. Being called doesn't require absolute perfection.

V

No.

M

It doesn't require the complete absence of doubt, fear, or hesitation. It requires submission. It requires bringing your doubt to the king, bowing down in worship and saying, I don't fully understand everything. My mind is struggling to grasp this, but I'm going to align my life with your agenda anyway.

V

That is the essence of true faith. Faith isn't the absence of doubt, it is obedience in the presence of doubt. The promise of eternal life, this relational knowing of God, is intimately tied to accepting this salvation and actively participating in this mission, bringing your doubts and flaws along for the ride.

M

But let's be realistic for a second. Let's look at the sheer logistics of this mission. Okay. Jesus is telling eleven guys from Galilee fishermen, tax collectors, zealots, some of whom are actively doubting what their eyes are seeing, to go and evangelize the entire known world.

V

Without the internet, mind you.

M

Right. To conquer the Roman Empire, not with swords, but with a message of a crucified carpenter. How could they possibly accomplish a global kingdom agenda?

V

It sounds impossible.

M

And furthermore, how can a regular person listening to this deep dive today, dealing with their own stress and flaws, possibly contribute to advancing a heavenly kingdom on earth? It seems mathematically and humanly impossible.

V

On human strength alone, it is entirely impossible. The burnout rate would be 100%.

M

Yeah.

V

But the paper doesn't leave us stranded with an impossible task. It provides the exact mechanism for success. It outlines the divine provision for this calling.

M

Which brings us to the final crucial piece of the puzzle: the empowerment and the arrival of the helper. To explain this, the author transitions from the end of the Gospel of Matthew to the beginning of the book of Acts, chapter 1, verses 4 to 8.

V

In this passage, it's just before the ascension. Jesus is assembled with them, and he gives them a very counterintuitive command. He has just told them to go to all nations, but here he commands them not to depart from Jerusalem. He tells them to hit the brakes. They must wait.

M

Right. He says, wait for the promise of the Father. He tells them, You shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. And then in verse 8, he gives them the key to the entire operation.

V

What is it?

M

He says, But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.

V

The author of our paper explicitly states: those who have responded positively to his call will be empowered to do the mission assigned. This empowerment is through the person of the Holy Spirit.

M

In verse 7, he says, Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you, but if I depart, I will send him to you.

V

It is to your advantage that I go away. You can imagine the disciples reeling from that statement.

M

Absolutely.

V

How could it possibly be better for the physical Jesus, the one who can touch blind eyes and make them see, who can speak to a storm and make it calm to leave them? How is losing the physical presence of God an advantage?

M

Okay, let's unpack this with a metaphor because it's a tricky concept. But let's think about a master artist, a generational genius painter, who is teaching a class of students.

V

Okay, I like this.

M

As long as the master is physically standing at the front of the room painting on one single canvas, the students are just observers. Right. They can watch his technique, they can listen to his instructions, they can try to mimic his brush strokes, but they are limited by their own clumsy hands and lack of vision.

V

They're outside of the process.

M

Exactly. The genius is localized at the front of the room. But imagine if, by leaving the room, the master artist could suddenly take up residence inside the mind and heart of every single student simultaneously.

V

Oh, that's a brilliant way to look at it.

M

Right. Suddenly, the master isn't just showing them what to do from the outside, he is guiding their hands, shaping their eyes, and inspiring their imagination from the inside out. The genius, the vision, the power of the artist is no longer localized to one canvas. It is multiplied across every single student in the room, empowering them all to create masterpieces simultaneously.

V

Wow.

M

Jesus, in his incarnate physical body, was localized in space and time. He could only be in one town at one time. But the Holy Spirit, the helper, the paraclete, is omnipresent.

V

The word paraclete is so rich.

M

What does it mean exactly?

V

It means one called alongside to help, an advocate, a comforter, an intercessor. The spirit is the very presence of God, no longer just with them, but dwelling within them.

M

Within them?

V

Right. And this raises an important question regarding the mechanics of what this helper actually does once he arrives. How does the spirit empower the believer to execute the kingdom agenda? The text gives us a very specific job description in verses eight through eleven. Jesus says, And when he has come, he will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.

M

Convict the world. Let's break down the mechanics of that. Jesus explains it. He says, of sin because they do not believe in me, of righteousness because I go to my father and you see me no more, of judgment because the ruler of this world is judged.

V

Right.

M

So what does it actually look like for the spirit to convict someone?

V

Well, conviction is that internal, inescapable sense of moral reality. Yeah. Have you ever done something wrong and instantly felt a heavy sinking feeling in your gut?

M

Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

V

A sudden clarity that you are out of alignment with what is good and true.

M

Yeah. Like you just know.

V

That is the convicting work of the spirit. For the unbeliever, the spirit pricks the conscience, revealing their need for a savior. For the believer, the spirit provides a profound internal compass regarding righteousness. The beauty of this for the mission of the church is that believers do not have to rely on their own eloquence to argue people into the kingdom of heaven.

M

That's a relief.

V

Exactly. You don't have to debate people into submission. You simply proclaim the truth and rely on the Holy Spirit to do the heavy lifting of changing the human heart from the inside out.

M

That takes an immense amount of pressure off the individual believer. We are called to be witnesses, but the spirit is the one who convicts.

V

Exactly. But the spirit's role isn't just outward conviction of the world, it is also inward illumination and guidance for the believer.

M

Inward guidance.

V

Right. In verse 13, Jesus says, However, when he, the spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will tell you things to come.

M

He will guide you into all truth. And verse 14 says, He will glorify me, for he will take of what is mine and declare it to you.

V

This is the ultimate reassurance for anyone who feels overwhelmed by the calling on their life. We're not just handed a massive global task and told to figure it out on our own strength.

M

Good, because that wouldn't end well.

V

Not at all. We are given the exact divine intellect, the very spirit of truth to guide us day by day. The Spirit takes the things of Christ, his wisdom, his grace, his courage, his agenda, and declares them to us continuously. When you don't know what to do, the spirit guides. When you don't know how to pray, the spirit intercedes.

M

It is an incredible, cohesive, foolproof system. We are recruited based on our potential and God's purpose. We are assigned the greatest mission in the history of the universe, and then we are internally equipped with the very spirit of the king to ensure we have the actual capability to do it.

V

It really is a masterpiece of theology. When you look at all these scriptures together, exactly as the paper lays them out, you see a master plan that perfectly balances God's supreme, overarching sovereignty, his deep desire for relational intimacy with us, our absolute responsibility to choose and exercise free will, and his gracious provision of power to overcome our flaws.

M

Which brings us to the end of our journey today. Let's do a quick flyover of the massive theological territory we've covered in this deep dive.

V

It's been quite a journey. We started by looking at John chapter 17, redefining it as the true Lord's Prayer. We saw how Jesus exercises his absolute authority over all flesh, not to subjugate, but to grant eternal life. Right. And we learned that eternal life isn't just chronological immortality, it is the intimate, active relationship of knowing God the Father and Jesus Christ.

M

Then we unpack the complex reality of the calling. We explore the golden chain of Romans chapter 8, seeing how God calls us according to his foreknowledge and his purpose, drawing us in and offering us justification.

V

But we recognize the tension that we still must exercise our free will to walk through that door and accept the call.

M

Exactly. Then we looked at the enigma of Judas Iscariot as a profound, sobering case study.

V

That was intense.

M

It was. It showed us that God can use our character, even our deepest, most fatal flaws, for his sovereign purpose without ever violating our free will or trapping us. It forces every one of us to look in the mirror and examine our own character and potential.

V

And we discovered that the kingdom agenda, the great commission to make disciples of all nations, requires our active participation, even when we are actively struggling with hesitation and doubt on the mountain.

M

Yeah, that part about them doubting was so reassuring.

V

Truly. And most importantly, we learned that we are not left as orphans to figure this mission out on our own. The helper, the Holy Spirit, has been sent to empower us, to convict the world, to guide us into truth, and to give us the literal internal capability to carry out the agenda of the king.

M

The entire system, from eternity past to eternity future, is designed for our ultimate success and God's ultimate glory.

V

It really is. It's breathtaking when you see it all connected.

M

It is. But before we go, I want to leave you with one final lingering thought. It's drawn directly from the text we just explored, specifically John chapter 16, verse 12.

V

Oh, I love this verse.

M

It's so good. Jesus is looking at his disciples, these rough fishermen and tax collectors who he loves, who have given up absolutely everything to follow him. And he says to them, I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

V

It's a remarkably tender pastoral moment from Jesus. He knows their human capacity. He knows they are already overwhelmed by what he has shared, and they don't even have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them yet.

M

Yes. So I invite you to ponder this as you go about the rest of your day, or you know, as you low your head on your pillow tonight. If the original disciples, the ones who physically walked with Jesus for three years, who heard his literal voice and saw his physical face, were not yet ready to handle the full weight of his truth. What incredible paradigm-shifting things might the Holy Spirit be waiting to reveal to you today, tomorrow, or a year from now as your spiritual capacity grows to bear them?

V

There is always more truth to be guided into. The calling is never stagnant, it is an ever-deepening well.

M

That is the beauty of an eternal relational life. It is an endless discovery of a God who wants to be known. We encourage you to keep seeking, keep growing, and keep unpacking the profound depths of the scriptures on your own.

V

There is so much more beneath the surface waiting to be found.

M

Thank you for joining us on this deep dive. We will catch you next time.